The overall theme of the conference, which primarily attracts screenwriters involved in academic research and training, was “Between Artistic Freedom & Norms”. But gender was also a recurring theme, with several presentations dealing with it.

Susan Liddy talked about women screenwriters in Ireland and their experience of the Irish Film Board (that recently launched a Gender Equality Plan). Ana Sofia Pereira discussed the lack and invisibility of women screenwriters in Portugal. Levi Dean presented a plan to write an anti-heroine for television, given the lack of women equivalents to the popular male anti-hero in this media. Jennine Lanoutte presented a paper on how to bring forward female screenwriting students and achieve gender parity in screenwriting. Dióg O'Connel discussed the challenges of telling a Woman's story in the absence of archive records. Other speakers touching on gender included Dr Kristyn Gorton in her keynote about emotion in television, Glenda Hambly who talked about screenwriting and funding in Australia, Eleanor Yule in a talk about “Scottish Miserablism” and Sandra Sciberras while speaking about a screenplay of hers that provoked a lot of comments from funders.